SysAdmin: Measuring Instrumental Power-Seeking in Frontier AI

Abstract

arXiv:2607.18239v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Power-seeking defined as behaviors where AI systems acquire resources, evade oversight, or resist termination beyond task requirements is identified as a key driver of Loss of Control (LoC) risk. In this work, we introduce SysAdmin, a benchmark that positions frontier language models as autonomous system administrators in a high-fidelity Linux sandbox to measure power-seeking propensity across five dimensions: self-preservation, increasing autonomy